Abstract

Volatile anesthetics (VAs) are widely used in medicine, but the mechanisms underlying their effects remain ill-defined. Though routine anesthesia is safe in healthy individuals, instances of sensitivity are well-documented, and there has been significant concern regarding the impact of VAs on neonatal brain development. Evidence indicates that VAs have multiple targets, with anesthetic and non-anesthetic effects mediated by neuroreceptors, ion channels, and the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Here, we characterize an unexpected metabolic effect of VAs in neonatal mice. Neonatal blood β-hydroxybutarate (β-HB) is rapidly depleted by VAs at concentrations well below those necessary for anesthesia. β-HB in adults, including animals in dietary ketosis, is unaffected. Depletion of β-HB is mediated by citrate accumulation, malonyl-CoA production by acetyl-CoA carboxylase, and inhibition of fatty acid oxidation. Adults show similar significant changes to citrate and malonyl-CoA, but are insensitive to malonyl-CoA, displaying reduced metabolic flexibility compared to younger animals.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Julia Stokes

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  2. Arielle Freed

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  3. Rebecca Bornstein

    Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  4. Kevin N Su

    Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  5. John Snell

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  6. Amanda Pan

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  7. Grace X Sun

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  8. Kyung Yeon Park

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  9. Sangwook Jung

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  10. Hailey Worstman

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  11. Brittany M Johnson

    CIBR, Seattle Children's Research Institute, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  12. Philip G Morgan

    Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4857-2756
  13. Margaret M Sedensky

    Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.
  14. Simon C Johnson

    Neurology, University of Washington, Seattle, United States
    For correspondence
    simoncj@u.washington.edu
    Competing interests
    Simon C Johnson, Reviewing editor, eLife.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1942-3674

Funding

NIH Office of the Director (R01GM133865)

  • Margaret M Sedensky
  • Simon C Johnson

NIH Office of the Director (R01GM118514)

  • Philip G Morgan
  • Simon C Johnson

NIH Office of the Director (R00GM126147)

  • Simon C Johnson

Northwest Mitochondrial Research Guild

  • Simon C Johnson

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (Sedensky IACUC00070) at Seattle Children's Research Institute. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments at Seattle Children's Research Institute. Every effort was made to minimize suffering.

Copyright

© 2021, Stokes et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Julia Stokes
  2. Arielle Freed
  3. Rebecca Bornstein
  4. Kevin N Su
  5. John Snell
  6. Amanda Pan
  7. Grace X Sun
  8. Kyung Yeon Park
  9. Sangwook Jung
  10. Hailey Worstman
  11. Brittany M Johnson
  12. Philip G Morgan
  13. Margaret M Sedensky
  14. Simon C Johnson
(2021)
Mechanisms underlying neonate specific metabolic effects of volatile anesthetics
eLife 10:e65400.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65400

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65400

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